Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), once served as a local official in Fujian Province, both at the prefectural level and provincial level from 1985 to 2002. Under the leadership of President Xi, Fujian's local authority promoted and guided financial reform and innovation with the dialectical philosophical thoughts of "weak hatching bird being the first to fly" and "constant dropping wearing away a stone."

Practical guidance: an action plan for the construction of financial power

The key role of Fujian in building a financial powerhouse could be mainly reflected in the following aspects: On the one hand, the fundamental positioning of "financial work serving the real economy," emphasizing the political character and people-first nature of financial work, has been verified in the exploration in Fujian, and the current deployment of preventing and resolving major financial risks and improving the basic system of the capital market continue this logic. The wisdom of "financial reform and opening-up must be swift and steady" guides the current reform of RMB internationalization and green finance, always reflecting the rhythm of risk control.

On the other hand, the proposition of "institutional opening-up in finance" extends the open-minded approach of "bringing in and going global" developed during President Xi's Fujian tenure, and the forward-looking layout of "digital finance empowering comprehensive development" has emerged in the action of "digital Fujian," providing a practical sample for the current development of financial technology and the making of a modern central banking system.

Theoretical innovation: The paradigmatic significance of the financial development with Chinese characteristics

From local level exploration to national level practice, President Xi's thoughts on finance have achieved a multidimensional theoretical breakthrough: Firstly, the thoughts have broken through the myth of "financial liberalization" proposed by certain scholars and established a political advantage of the centralized and unified leadership over finance by the CPC, a Chinese model distinct from the Western "regulatory capture theory."

Secondly, the thoughts have been innovative, particularly in terms of "the function of modern finance", and have made attempts to incorporate financial services into the modernization of the national governance system.

Thirdly, a "concept of financial security," as a component of the general national security outlook, has been proposed by the thoughts, and the art of regulatory system and control mechanisms has been formed to dynamically "pay equal attention to risk prevention and development," coming from the sublimation of Fujian's experience in dealing with private lending risks.

This integrated system reflects a cohesive and forward-looking financial philosophy that combines strategic vision, equitable principles, institutional strength and innovative solutions. With these innovations, China has demonstrated unique institutional resilience in major tests such as the 2008 financial crisis and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At present, the regional financial cooperation under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership framework and the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative investment and financing system could be considered as the continuous development of the financial diplomacy idea of "focusing on ourselves while achieving mutual benefits and win-win results" experienced in Fujian.

The fundamental principle of financial work in the new era

The GDP of the financial industry grew by 5.6 percent year-on-year in 2024. Especially in the global financial turmoil in 2022, the performance of China's financial sector has demonstrated the resilience of institutions, proving the forward-looking theory of the "financial sector serving the national strategy." The current innovation and breakthrough in the fields of science and technology finance and green finance form a contemporary interpretation of the idea of "financial adaptation to industrial upgrading" once practiced in Fujian.

Standing on the new journey of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, the value of revisiting President Xi's thoughts on finance and practice in Fujian lies not only in their historical contribution, but also in their methodological enlightenment. It further requires officials and leadership in financial sectors and other fields to take the effectiveness of finance serving the real economy as the fundamental criterion for testing work, to improve the modern financial regulatory system in the process of integrity and innovation so that the advantages of the financial system can be better transformed into governance efficiency and provide solid support for comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese modernization.

（Xia Lu, a special commentator for CGTN, is a research fellow at the National Academy for Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China and Deputy Dean of the School of Marxism Studies at Xinjiang University. Gao Lei, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Opening-up, Research Institute of Globalization and China's Modernization, University of International Business and Economics. ）

原文链接：[Xia Lu , Gao Lei] CGTN：From local experience to national strategy